February 11, 2021
BEIRUT (AP) In the middle of the destroyed Beirut neighbourhood of Gemmayzeh, a small team in masks and gloves were sanitising and packing oxygen machines to be sent to those in need.
It’s the latest venture of a Lebanese civil group that arose with the coronavirus pandemic and has been finding new avenues to help as the country’s crises expand.
“No one is exempt from COVID-19. Nobody. Nobody has super-power immunity,” said one of the founders of Baytna Baytak, Arabic for Our Home is Your Home, Melissa Fathallah.
“We saw that our own relatives and our colleagues are suffering with this, we decided, okay, we are going to start another fundraiser and to specifically focus on the oxygen machines.”
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For the past two weeks Fawzi Kesserwany and his friends have been handling phone calls from distressed Covid-19 patients scrambling for medical supplies amid a surge
in Covid-19 cases.
The engineer co-founded a small activist group called Defend Your Rights that received 100 calls in a week when it launched an oximeter-sharing initiative at the end of January.
The devices are used by Covid-19 patients to monitor oxygen levels.
Although he is not a medical professional, Mr Kesserwany says he feels compelled to help.
“We couldn’t just stand idle and watch as people died,” he tells
The National. “In the absence of the state, we had to act.”
Beirut s Young Artists & Designers Deserve a Future
After the Blast, Beirut s Artists & Designers Want Their Future Back
Mikella Younes
This year has been devastating, but nowhere more so than for Beirut. Somewhat miraculously, the Lebanese capital had clung to its status as a progressive enclave – with the most vibrant club culture and irrepressible, self-organized art scenes in the region – despite episodic bouts of violence and chronic political instability. Then, a chemical explosion brought the city to its knees and laid bare years of neglect by the country’s political leaders.
This August – amid a growing pandemic and the worst economic crisis in Lebanese history – one of the largest ever non-nuclear explosions decimated the city, killing 204 people, injuring 6,500, and destroying large sections of Beirut’s LGBTQI+ safe area, as well as its fashion and artistic hubs.
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